Oregon chain compared to others

Seeeeeee... I done learned me sumptin new today :D

Yup.. Looked it up and the ductile properties are more flexible than I was told early in life.. Does not like heat though.. Even with the high melting point.. It loses strength above 430 C or 806 F.... I would guess a lot depends on the mix of alloy elements also..
 
Another very interesting fact about Titanium...

Quote Wikipedia....


Titanium is non-toxic even in large doses and does not play any natural role inside the human body.[29] An estimated 0.8 milligrams of titanium is ingested by humans each day but most passes through without being absorbed.[29] It does, however, have a tendency to bio-accumulate in tissues that contain silica. An unknown mechanism in plants may use titanium to stimulate the production of carbohydrates and encourage growth. This may explain why most plants contain about 1 part per million (ppm) of titanium, food plants have about 2 ppm, and horsetail and nettle contain up to 80 ppm.[29]
 
Very well Brian, it's used to skin the SR71 spy planes because of this quality. On the ground the plane literally dumps fuel on the ground, but once in extreme orbit it expands and seals. It was chosen because of this resiliency.
It stretches from temperature more than anything, lubed properly, I'd doubt the heat would effect it much on a chainsaw.
But I really don't see any advantage to be gained unless it's a race saw looking for every single edge they could gain. It's weight would allow it to accelerate more quickly, just slightly.
 
Another little problem with titanium is the process to form it .A local company that is no longer in business ,XLO division of Textron ,had the contract to manufacture turbine blades for Rolls Royce .Every so often the residue of scrap from the process would catch fire which was nearly impossible to extinguish .
 
Titanium has roughly half the specific gravity of steel, so aside from the cutters, you would have a chain close to half the weight of the current ones. That seems pretty significant to affect chain speed.

One of the factors affecting the higher cost of titanium made products is the difficulty to weld it, requiring a closed environment. That wouldn't figure in with a chain. Non magnetic too, so your saw won't get pulled towards nails :lol:...or your belt buckle :O
 
It must be a real chore to machine because they used a solid 1" stream of cutting oil if they broached the parts .Because they basically hand finished those turbine blades I suspect it was the grinding dust that caught afire . I know we were cautioned if we used any type of thing like welding of using a cutting torch .That place was just one of the hundreds I had the occasion to visit while I worked out of the electricans hall .Interesting though .
 
"Run it slow and feed it hard" is the motto for machining titanium. The biggest problem is not keeping the cutter loaded, it work hardens in a heartbeat, dull a cutter, slow down in a cut and you have to get out the carbide to clean out the mess.
The other problem, when doing small parts is it springs so much, trying to single point threads on anything less than 1/4" and the cutter just pushes the material away rather than cutting it. Then if you had an end mill 1/4" or smaller it would literally spring the end mill rather than let it cut! You have to "climb cut" every cut on titanium!
Titanium power/grindings can catch fire, but it's very hard to catch a solid piece on fire, if you do, just step back and watch it burn, nothing you can do.
Magnesium is another story! Machined a lot of it as well, we were required to had a five gallon pail of powder by each machine that was cutting it. Not sure what it was but we were told to dump it on the fire and it would smother it. That was at EVERY shop I ever worked at, industry standard. We also had to machine them dry, or add oil with a brush as all the CNC machines used water based coolant. Magnesium burns at a rate that adding water to it breaks the water down and just makes it burn hotter! Never add water to mag fire, just a little fyi.
 
When I refurbished the Homelite 2100 in my avatar it needed some welding .Seeings I have no provisions to so I had a buddy who owns a welding shop do it .It was mag and he made darned sure there was no grinding dust on it before he ever layed the TIG to it .
 
Not really any fumes when machining it Jay, powder when grinding it, but the Aluminum dust is a lot more detrimental to your health.
Now back when they first started using this in mass, they used liquid nitrogen for coolant, it machined like butter when frozen. But it was found to be detrimental to the health of the machinist!
 
Well that climb milling is something I broke so many dovetail cutters that I finally gave up on it .Damned at 20 plus a cutter it about broke me .

So I suspect then the stuff might be much like Thompson shafting in that you have to roll a mighty chip so as to pull the heat out with rather than allow it into the work ???
 
I'll have to get my math hat back on Al, it's been a while, we were running a 1.25" four flute end mill hogging 1/2" deep, 500rpm at 4.5ipm feed rate. I'll go dig up my calculator, I think I know where it is, and figure it in a bit. But I want to say it was like a .0045" chip load per flute.
Even the 1/4" four flute end mills we normally ran around 750rpm and I want to say a feed rate of 7.5ipm.
Funner yet was running the crap through a bandsaw, spent many a day doing that, nothing but a nightmare!
 
I have a titanium handlebar bike stem. Titanium frames were popular for awhile too, but they had to go with thicker walled tubing for strength, so the weight savings wasn't that great. People got very good at welding that stuff.
 
Looks like the EM chain... Not so different from Super 70.

First full chisel chains used on saws I think is Disston from mid 40's, a good 20 years before McCulloch..

There are earlier chisel chain patents, but are not sure they sold them much or series produced even.
 
A lot have been tried over the years on chains and its constructions. There are frequently tests and trials, but it is hard to beat what we have now.

Chains is a bit to personal to say that one fit all as its property's affect us when we use them. Since we all do things different and set our standards different the spectra is very wide.

A hard chain will be liked by some, soft by some. Finding compromise that fit all is not easy.
Chain and bar must work together. Too hard chain give excessive wear on a soft bar, as a soft chain will get excessive wear from a hard bar.
Throw in sprockets and rims and you have a nice equation to ponder over
 
Looks like the EM chain... Not so different from Super 70.

First full chisel chains used on saws I think is Disston from mid 40's, a good 20 years before McCulloch..

There are earlier chisel chain patents, but are not sure they sold them much or series produced even.
Magnus thankyou for the history lesson on the chisel chain.
I always knew Carlton and Oregon intoduced the 3/8" chisel in 1969 [Carlton called theirs "Champion chain"] but I didn't know about Oregon's and the other companies larger 1/2", 9/16", 3/4" chisel from the 1950s. I just found this out from your sawcollectors site yesterday.
Very interesting, thanks again.

Willard.
 
What kind of tickles me about chain is all the sudden out of the blue they come up with a great new idea that in actuality is just an old idea everybody forgot about .This auto sharp stuff is one example and the so called rip chains another .
 
It is a pleasure to be able to show something of interest.
It is a part of chainsaw history.

This is often overlooked and not as interesting as news and sales and development.
A lot of recourses and money could be saved by looking at what has been done and tried.
You could think the wheel can not be reinvented, but that is wrong.A few details changed and out it go...
 
Magnus thankyou for the history lesson on the chisel chain.
I always knew Carlton and Oregon intoduced the 3/8" chisel in 1969 [Carlton called theirs "Champion chain"] but I didn't know about Oregon's and the other companies larger 1/2", 9/16", 3/4" chisel from the 1950s. I just found this out from your sawcollectors site yesterday.
Very interesting, thanks again.

Willard.
There are older chisel chains than this, but I think this is of the first Oregon chisel chains...
"OREGON-ize your chain."
Here is 1955 Oregon Chipper, Chisel and crosscut chain. Posted by William.
http://www.chainsawcollectors.se/phpbb3/viewtopic.php?f=149&t=3169
coxchipperchain024.jpg
 
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